Hope Has Two Daughters

Morgufile
I read this quote from St. Augustine: "Hope has two beautiful daughters.  Their names are Anger and Courage.  Anger that things are the way they are.  Courage to make them the way they ought to be."

Jim Denison of the Denison Forum quoted it in an enewsletter I get. It struck a chord with me, though. How often do I hear people who are mad about the way things are...but that's it. We are a nation that is, generally, all talk. We spout opinions like they matter somehow. Like our angry words are somehow going to reshape the world...

Now don't get me wrong - words are powerful... I'm in the wrong business - heck, I'm in the wrong FAITH if I didn't believe that. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word with God, and the Word was God." I don't take that lightly... Nor the fact that God SPOKE and everything came into being. Or that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17)

Are we ready, though, to follow through to be the change we want to see in the world*? That is, can we put feet to our anger?

A young lady found out about sex-trafficking when she did some mission work in Korea and it horrified her. But then life interrupted... as it will for many of us. But then she saw that a church had sponsored a road race to help free people from sex-trafficking in the Atlanta area. She's a runner. And that anger surfaced again. And she contacted some people - and now she's an advocate here in Corry, PA for stopping international sex-trafficking. Because Hope has two daughters. Anger and Courage.

And in October there's going to be a road race in Corry to raise money and awareness.

And she's talking to churches. And here's where words have an impact. And the Word has an impact. Because too many people here think, "This doesn't affect us." But it's closer than we think.

Anger AND Courage. Jesus chased out the money changers because they had taken the house of the Lord and turned it into a den of robbers** and on a number of occasions took the Pharisees to task for their mis-handling of God's word and God's people. Anger and Courage.

The world as I wish it was... and the courage to see it that way...











 *Always attributed to Gandhi - he never said it (see the link) so I fell okay using that sentence here :) 
**No, I don't think Jesus would chase out the youth group for selling t-shirts in the narthex or whatever... It's a whole lot deeper than simply selling something in the church...

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